AJC > Sandy Springs > Blog > Archives > 2005 > October > 24
Monday, October 24, 2005
A story of remission: 30 years later
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Imagine you’re at the point in your life where the good stuff is just beginning. Then someone tells you you’re going to die.
It’s August of 1975 and you should be thinking about your senior year at Auburn. You should be thinking about your friends at the sorority house, dates with handsome young boys and yelling “War Eagle!â€? at football games. But something’s wrong.
You’re spending the summer working as a lifeguard in the small town in Alabama where you grew up. You’re supposed to swim 20 laps a day to stay in shape, but lately it’s getting harder and harder. During your breaks you have to lie down on the table in the break room.
One day a friend pushes you into the pool and you’re afraid you don’t have the strength to pull yourself out. If you weren’t so exhausted, you’d panic. At home you try to pack to go back to school but it’s just too much work. And then one day you can’t get out of bed.
There’s a monster lurking in the shadows. Because of your youth some suspect you have mono. Your doctor knows better. He sends you two hours away to the University of Alabama/Birmingham Medical Center. They perform a bone marrow test, a procedure you’ll have too many times in life.
It’s Sept. 9, 1975, and they tell you you’re feeling bad because you have Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL). They can treat it, but you only have a 15% chance to make it. The monster is loose.
It’s Sept. 9, 1975, and it’s a beautiful early fall day. The sky is deep blue, the clouds are white and puffy and there’s a hint of l in the air. On this most perfect day they tell you you’re probably going to die.
They send you back home for the night because they don’t have a bed for you. Your dad takes you to the beauty parlor to get your hair washed because you’re so wiped out you can’t raise your arms.
Later he has to take you to get a blood transfusion to buy you a few hours of normalcy. You tell him you’re going to be one of the 15% who make it. He’s with you.
The next day you’re back in Birmingham and they begin a 21-day protocol of drugs and radiation. Back then they didn’t know as much about ALL as they do now and they basically flood your system with everything they can think of to kill the monster. At the end of three weeks you don’t have remission, so they do it again.
You have some good days when you laugh, some not-so-good days when you feel tired and some awful days. At one point you can’t think of anything better than walking without that damn IV pole at your side. After all, you’re going to be in the 15%.
It’s Oct. 22, 1975 — your father’s birthday — and they tell you you’re in remission. You’re weak and your immune system is shot, but the monster has been staggered.
Things would be better if you had gotten remission the first time. Again you hear that 15% business, this time applied to your chances to keep remission. But you didn’t get this far to lose. There’s more chemo and radiation and your hair falls out.
The doctors tell you it’s out of their hands. The longer you stay in remission, the better your odds are. You wrap a scarf around your head, go back and finish college. You don’t know exactly what you want to do next, but if you only have months left, you’re not going to get your ticket punched sitting at a desk in some office.
You hit the road to visit friends. You find yourself in Hilton Head. It’s full of young people. It’s fun. You decide on the spot to stay. Just like that. You go home, get your stuff and move.
You work at a score of jobs. You’re a photographer, a lifeguard, a waitress, a shop girl. Your pals are waitresses, golf pros and tennis bums. Everyone seems young. Work is just a way to kill time until the next party, the next picnic, the next boat trip. If things are going to end more sooner than later, let it be like this.
You play tennis, plant a vegetable garden and ride your bike everywhere. You sit for hours on the beach. Climbing the career ladder is for other people - you just want to feel the sun on your face and smell the salt air.
Slowly it starts to sink in. You’re not dying. The monster is gone.
A few months at the beach becomes three years and suddenly you realize that a savings account might be a good thing. You eventually leave Hilton Head and begin the phase of your life without a sword over your head.
Your hair is still thin from the chemotherapy and your teeth are fragile because of the radiation treatments. Your back is dotted with scars from bone marrows and spinal taps and you remember every single one. You can’t be a blood or organ donor, and getting insurance is a pain. Small potatoes for someone who stared the monster in the eye and told it to go to hell.
If this is a lot to imagine, consider having lived it. My wife Carol did. And because she’s been there and come back, she quietly gives back.
She was there when they started Camp Sunshine for teens and kids with cancer. She did the three-day walk to fight breast cancer twice, once as a walker, once as a crew member. Once a very vocal non-runner, she’s completed two marathons with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training program and helped raise thousands to fight leukemia. This winter she’s going to serve as a mentor for Team in Training.
That doesn’t count the phone calls and letters to people who have just been diagnosed. Or their families. Her message is simple - the monster doesn’t always win. There’s hope.
We’re lucky if we meet one genuine hero in our lifetime. I married one.
